


She Says It's Only In My Head

by seekingsquake



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Death of a Spouse, Dream Sequence, F/F, M/M, greiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 02:22:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're dreaming," she says, and he loses her again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Says It's Only In My Head

**Author's Note:**

> All characters are property of Marvel.  
> Please do not repost or reupload this piece anywhere without consent. If you ask, I'm sure we can work something out :]

When he opens his eyes there’s sunlight streaming in from all angles and he’s looking up at the staccato patterns of a popcorn ceiling. Old leather creaks under him as he pulls himself into a sitting position, and he can hear someone humming quietly behind him. To his right is a wall to wall, floor to ceiling window with a sliding door in it, facing out over a neatly kept green lawn and overlooking the ocean. The curtains are pulled back and it’s a gorgeous day outside, the sky and the water merging in the distance to form one giant blue expanse. He turns to find the source of the humming, and he finds her standing in a kitchen of dark wood, stainless steel, and heavy duty countertops.

She’s leaning over the island, flipping idly through the pages of a magazine. The frames of her glasses are a little too bulky for her face, and they sit low on her nose. Her hair is pulled up in a loose, messy bun that’s secured with a brightly coloured elastic and speared with a pen, and her pale lips are wrapped idly around a spoon, a bowl sitting forgotten by her elbow. She’s not even humming a real song, just random notes in a stuttering, makeshift tune. It’s like most of what she does, most of who she is: made up as she goes along. He doesn’t even know if she knows that she’s doing it.

He lifts his arms up, clasps his hands together over his head, and groans as he leans back in a stretch. She looks up from her magazine and smiles gently at him, the spoon leaving her mouth and hanging limply between relaxed fingers. She says, “If you sleep on the couch like that you’re going to throw out your back,” and her voice is soft, faintly amused, ridiculously affectionate.

“I like sleeping in the sun,” he rumbles at her, even though his back is tight in discomfort. “Not my fault we don’t get a lot of natural light in the bedroom.”

She smiles at him indulgently, then puts her dishes in the dishwasher and crosses the room. She rounds the couch and slips into his lap, her knees bracketing his hips and her arms draped casually over his shoulders. She’s wearing a flowy skirt that hits around her knees and a tiny tank top, and one of his dress shirts is hanging off her slender shoulders, unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows. The skirt is hiked up over her thighs so she can get her legs around him, and they just rest there together, his face pressed into her hair.

She smells like sea breeze and citrus.

He pulls the elastic and pen from her hair and watches the dark, loose curls of it cascade over her shoulders and down her back. He kisses her gently as he maneuvers the dress shirt off her body, letting it slip to the floor at his feet. Her fingers tangle in his hair, and he can feel the press of her wedding band against his scalp. He doesn’t know why it feels like this will be the last time he ever holds her, but he kisses her like he’s trying to breathe her in, like he’s trying to consume her, like he’s being consumed. He splays a hand between her shoulder blades and a hand on the dip of the small of her back, and he presses her close to him, arches his body against hers and holds her close.

She hums with contentment as she breaks the kiss, lets her lips hover over his so close that they touch when she speaks. “Bruce.” His name almost sounds like a prayer. “Do you ever wonder how we ended up with everything we dreamed of?”

“No,” he murmurs, tilting her head and kissing the column of her throat, the line of her collar. “I don’t tend to question God when he decides to give me a gift.”

She almost purrs as he carefully, softly sucks the place where the collarbone meets the line of her shoulder. “It’s too good to be real.”

“Betty.”

He surges up from underneath her, turns their bodies so that he’s cradling her as he lays her down on the couch and holds his weight over her. He doesn’t know why this feels like the end of... something. Like something is finishing before his eyes. He kisses her, cautiously desperate, and presses her against the leather. His hands roam her body as if they’re trying to memorize the feel of her, the way the cotton of her top feels against her skin against his skin, the way goosebumps raise over her arms if he touches her with only his fingertips.

“Like a dream,” she murmurs to him as one of his hands slips under her skirt and holds her leg where it rests against his hip.

“Betty.”

She arches into the touch of his lips, tugs gently on his hair when he does something she likes. “A dream. Bruce.”

He’s holding her in his hands but she’s slipping through his fingers. He doesn’t know how or why, or even how he knows, just that she is. “Betty.”

“You’re dreaming,” she whispers before pulling him into a fierce kiss. “You’re dreaming.”

He ignores her words, grips her where his hands are and presses her harder against the couch cushions. She’s slipping away. If he can just pin her down then maybe she won’t go.

“You’re dreaming.”

“No. You’re here.”

“Yes,” she sighs softly against his lips. “I am. But you’re not.”

He kisses her like goodbye. “Don’t make me go. Don’t send me away. Betty. Betty. I love you. Please. Betty, please. I love you. I love you.”

Her kiss is a gift. He’s always thought that about her, that every kiss was a gift, that every moment in her presence was something he had to earn. If only he could earn it...

“It’s time to wake up now.”

“No. No. This is my life. You’re-- I love you. Please, Betty, Baby, please. I love you, please don’t go. Don’t make me go. Betty. I want to stay here, with you. Please. Betty.”

“You need to wake up now, Bruce.”

“Betty--”

“I want you to wake up now.”

* * *

He doesn’t open his eyes. He squeezes them tightly closed, bites hard on his lip, isn’t aware of the tears trekking down his face or the fact that his whole body is trembling. Doesn’t know that he’s trembling enough that it woke Tony up beside him.

But this... Tony’s grown accustomed to this. He fell in love with a man who lost his wife before the love had dissipated. Some nights Bruce doesn’t dream of her, sleeps the whole night through. Most nights are hard. Tony can’t imagine how much harder they’d be if Bruce had to wake up alone.

He never sobs until Tony’s pulled him into the circle of his arms, never lets himself let it all go until he’s drowning in the scent of musky cologne and motor oil. He clutches to Tony like he’s drowning, like if he lets go everything will disappear.

Tony knows that Bruce loves him. It’s in his eyes, in his voice, so overwhelmingly obvious even to Bruce’s friends, even to all the people who had warned Tony that Bruce might never love again. Not after Betty. But somehow he loves Tony. Loved him fast, loves him hard, against all odds. It would be easy. Everything would be easy except-- “Every time I fall asleep I lose her all over again.”

There’s nothing that can be said to make that any less painful. Tony can’t even imagine... Bruce once described the dream as blissful. The hurt of that... It reopens the wound every time. Tony sees his lover muddle through it every single day, work hard to heal and keep it all together. To move on. But. “How many times do I have to lose her before I lose her forever? How long does she have to haunt me? Tony. Tony.”

“Shh, shh. I’m here. You’re awake. I’m here. I’m with you.” If Bruce lets go, Tony will slip through his fingers. Because that’s what Betty does.

But Tony’s alive. He’s not slipping anywhere.

“Tony. Tony, I lo--,” he chokes on a sob before he can say it, but Tony knows.

“I’m with you. I’m here. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Tony had never believed in ghosts, in hauntings, in an afterlife. He’d grown up taught that once you were dead, that was it. Game over. But at night, he can almost feel Betty in the bed with them, can almost feel her hands on Bruce. Bruce, who tries so hard to let her go. Bruce, who goes to therapy and takes his antidepressants and takes Tony to places he’s never been to so that they can make memories that won’t be shadowed with her presence. It doesn’t feel like he’s hanging onto her because he wants to. He doesn’t want these dreams. He doesn’t want to see her anymore. She’s dead. He wants to move on from that.

But sometimes, if Tony lifts his head enough to look over Bruce’s shoulder, he thinks he can see where she would have been if she wasn’t. Where she shouldn’t be anymore, but maybe is. Some nights, he thinks he can hear her humming.  

“I can’t keep losing her, Tony,” Bruce murmurs, still crying but almost asleep again.

Tony just holds him, but he swears. On nights like this, he can feel her hands, holding Bruce just as closely as he is.


End file.
